"It
is with great pleasure that Booranga
Writers' Centre welcomes Rajith Savanadasa as our first writer-in-residence
for 2017," Ms Halliwell said. "We feel privileged to have such a talented young
writer sharing his work with us through the upcoming author reading, and
Booranga writing workshop.

"I
encourage all in the region who are interested in writing and literature to
attend his public reading and the writing workshop."

Mr
Savanadasa was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Melbourne. He runs Open
City Stories, an oral history project documenting the lives of a group of
asylum seekers in Melbourne and is working on the next phase of it. He is
currently working on a follow-up to his debut novel Ruins which has recently been longlisted for the Australian Literary
Society 2017 Gold Medal award. Mr Savanadasa was shortlisted for the
Asia-Europe Foundation short story prize in 2013, the Fish Publishing short
story prize in 2013, received a Wheeler Centre Hotdesk Fellowship in 2014, and
was part of the QWC/Hachette Manuscript Development Program in 2014.The March events will be held: